Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
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MARQUETTE --- Ewen-Trout Creek’s super scorer, the leader of Wakefield-Marenisco’s district championship team and Ironwood’s floor leader were named to the All-U.P. Division 4 Second Team at Monday’s meeting of the Upper Peninsula Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association. Ewen-Trout Creek’s Austin Gordon, Ironwood’s Axton Ruotsala and Wakefield-Marenisco’s Carter Cole joined nine other top players on the Second Team. Gordon, a 5-11 junior, made the list for the second straight year. His 24.1 point per game scoring average ranked second in th...
HURLEY - For the first time in three years, there will be a Paavo Nurmi Marathon this weekend. It was canceled, like pretty much everything else, in 2020 because of the pandemic and it didn't happen again in 2021. Fans of the Paavo are pretty excited to have it back for the 52nd running Saturday. As of midday Wednesday, over 160 people were signed up across all the events, including 43 half-marathoners and a similar number for the full 26.2 miles. They may get a lot more signed up in the final...
IRONWOOD - Ironwood sure has taken to heart the old mantra that regular-season records don't matter come tournament time. The 9-15 Red Devils have now won more district tournament games (two) than conference games (one) as they prepare to host a district final against Calumet tonight. Ironwood beat Iron Mountain 25-14, 18-25, 25-15, 25-16 in Wednesday night's MHSAA Division 3 District 65 semifinal. "It just goes to show a record doesn't tell you what kind of team you're coming up against," Iron...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] EWEN - A big reason why Bessemer's drought of district tournaments dates back to 2004 is because of Ewen-Trout Creek. It was no different for this group of Bessemer seniors. "Freshman year we lost to Ewen. Sophomore year we lost to Ewen. Junior year we lost to Ewen," senior Cade Mazzon said. "This year, we had to beat them." Just because they came in with an under-.500 record didn't mean E-TC was any less formidable than normal. So Bessemer fought to lift... Full story
HURLEY - Mercer used its slower pace of play to slow Hurley and it kept them in the game for awhile. But Hurley pulled away for a 53-29 Indianhead Conference win Friday night. The Midgettes led 29-18 at the half and Bailey Thompson hit a 3 to make it an eight-point game right away in the second half. But Hurley responded with a 16-2 run to push the lead to 22, 45-23. "They slowed it down on us a little bit, they ran their offense methodically and got it to their big girls underneath in the...
SURING, Wis. --- Andy Hamlin ran for five touchdowns as Hurley improved its record to .500 with its second consecutive win, 62-7, at Suring Friday night. The Midgets' offense was operating at an elite level all evening. Hamlin scored touchdowns on five of his nine carries and rushed for a team-best 174 yards. Dakota Haanen rushed eight times for 143 yards, and between them, they averaged 18.6 yards per carry. But Haanen was injured on the last drive the starters played and his status going forwa...
HURLEY - A one-score deficit might have been no problem. Even having two-touchdowns to make up in the second half would have been manageable. But not three. Especially not the way Ashland got the halftime lead to 24-0. Hurley failed to score on fourth down inside the 5 to pull within a single touchdown and Ashland followed with a 94-yard drive that ended in a touchdown just before the half. Ashland went on to win 38-14 and drop Hurley to 0-2. "That was killer," Hurley coach Scott Erickson said....
ASHLAND, Wis. - While Ironwood's signature track-and-field meet had an Ashland feel, from the location to the team champions, the Red Devils still put their mark on Friday's Jack Kraemer Invitaitonal. Ironwood's Nick Niemi won the 800 and 1,600 meter runs against some of the best competition he will face this year, leading the boys team to a third-place finish. The 39th annual Kraemer will go down in history as the first Kraemer to be held outside of Ironwood, thanks to a late snowmelt. In the...
IRONWOOD — Last year’s Kiwanis Border Bash all-star basketball game wasn’t going to be easy to top, not with members of the three-time state champion North Central boys team filling the Lindquist Center gym and leading Northern Michigan to a victory. “That’s what everybody was telling me, but I think we got close” for this year’s games, event director Russ Maki said. “We should pack that gym again.” Ewen-Trout Creek standout Jake Witt headlines a talented group that pits many of the top boys and girls basketball players in the Upper Peninsu...
WATERSMEET - Watersmeet coach Brent Besonen was a bit worried the pressure of getting to 2,000 career points might get to Bethany Baldwin on the opening night of the tournament Monday. She put those fears to rest in a hurry. The senior scored 17 in the first quarter, surpassed the milestone in the third quarter and finished with 41 points, leading the Nimrods past the Speedgirls 64-46 in the first round of the MHSAA Class D District 127 tournament. The Nimrods will host Wakefield-Marenisco in a...
WAKEFIELD - What a stretch of games for the Watersmeet Nimrods. They lost to No. 1 Dollar Bay Thursday night, fell to the third-place team in the conference, Wakefield-Marenisco, Friday night, 80-53, and they face back-to-back meetings with No. 3 Ewen-Trout Creek early next week. "We're playing the best teams in the U.P., some of them," Watersmeet coach George Peterson III said. "That's one way that our young guys will grow. I'm challenging them to get better every night." Watersmeet's Julius...
EWEN - When Eli Nordine hit Jake Witt for an alley-oop in a summer league game in 2016, coach Brad Besonen quipped that it was the first in Ewen-Trout Creek history. Except he really wasn't joking. Witt has broken the mold of the E-TC standout. For all the great E-TC players, few have been quite like Witt, the 6-foot-7, 240-pound star who has played in the extremely rarified air above the Ewen rims. "All the other good players we've had, it seems like most of them have all been guards - good...
IRONWOOD - Samsons' coach Dennis Mackey could feel the energy and enthusiasm while watching the women's game before his own team took the court Wednesday night. GCC had a new rival -- Bay College. When his team took the court, there was no doubt. "The guys were excited, it was a good crowd, you could just feel the energy was different than other nights," Mackey said. Gogebic Community College struck first blood in the new rivalry, prevailing 96-89 in a back-and-forth triple overtime thriller....
IRONWOOD --- As a freshman last year, Lori Wardynski was GCC's best player. Yet there were times, she admits, where she would frustrate her coach, where she didn't quite get the message he was trying to send. Wardynski worked and worked and worked through the offseason, lifting weights, becoming faster and stronger, all while getting into the physical shape she needed to be in to lead the Lady Samsons' exhausting offense. This fall, her coach Mark Movrich had an idea for her to take things a...
By JASON JUNO [email protected] IRONWOOD - Up by three points in the final seconds, Ironwood coach Pete Lewinski didn't even think about fouling to prevent a 3-point shot attempt by Hurley. The way his defense was playing, he didn't have to. The only shot Hurley could get off was a 2 at the buzzer, as Ironwood played excellent defense on their 3-point shooters. It gave the Red Devils a 36-35 Indianhead Conference victory over their archrivals Thursday night in front of a packed house....
IRONWOOD - Ironwood coach Kari Jacquart told her team to expect a low-scoring defensive battle with rival Hurley and that's exactly what happened. The Red Devils defeated Hurley 42-30 Tuesday night in front of a good-sized pre-Christmas crowd. It was the third win for Ironwood in its last four meetings with Hurley. "It's a big game, everybody gets up for it," Ironwood coach Kari Jacquart said. "I'm still used to Bessemer being our rival because that's who it was when we played. It was really...
IRONWOOD - After scoring just 23 points in the first half, reaching a five-year high on the scoreboard by game's end was about the last thing Ironwood expected Friday night. But a 50-point second half made that a reality. The Devils beat Butternut 73-54, their best offensive output since scoring 75 against Mercer on Dec. 7, 2012. Ironwood was up 23-15 at the half before building a 20-point lead in the second half of the Indianhead Conference matchup, getting to the basket at will. Butternut cut...
PORT WING, Wis. - South Shore looked every bit the part of conference favorite in the first half, building a 37-18 lead on Hurley, which looked every bit the part of a team working in new - but dynamic - pieces. In the second half, Hurley showed it may just be a sleeper in the Indianhead Conference, fighting back to within a possession. They ultimately lost 50-48, but they came away with a lot of positives. "I'm just pleased with how the kids bought into not going crazy in the second half,"... Full story
TURTLE LAKE, Wis. --- While the score may have looked like it, Hurley didn't play a basketball game Friday night. Their football season shows no signs of ending anytime soon. Taking their offense to another level, the No. 4-seeded Midgets defeated No. 5 Turtle Lake 76-44 Friday night in a WIAA Division 7 Level 1 playoff game. Hurley compiled a video-game like 647 rushing yards, led by senior fullback Scott Subert's 318, and it was more than enough to offset the Lakers' vaunted passing attack....
HURLEY - Sure Hurley probably could have made the playoffs regardless of Friday night's result. But from the opening play of the game, when the Midgets' Isaac DeCarlo ran down and knocked the ball loose from Houghton's running back just short of what looked like a sure touchdown, you got the feeling pretty quickly they weren't going to leave anything to chance. The Midgets clinched a WIAA Division 7 playoff berth with a 22-6 West-PAC win over Houghton. It's their 20th straight trip to the postse...
HURLEY - For nearly all of the first half, the Hurley-Gogebic game was more than living up to the hype Friday night. The new-look Midgets looked solid, and the Miners, in their first game since Ironwood joined the Bessemer/Wakefield-Marenisco co-op, looked just as tough. Hurley, though, took control of the game with 22 unanswered points, including 14 in a crazy final minute, 22 seconds of the first half. The Midgets won 44-20 in front of a huge crowd. "It's a big win, we put up 44 on a good...
MARQUETTE - Four area players were named to the All-U.P. team at Wednesday's 67th annual boys basketball meeting of the Upper Peninsula Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association. Ewen-Trout Creek's Jake Witt added to his collection of postseason awards by earning a spot on the Class D First Team. The 6-7 center averaged 24.2 points, 17 rebounds and 5.1 blocks per game, while also earning the Copper Mountain Player of the Year award and a spot on the Associated Press Class D All-State tea...
REPUBLIC - Everyone had seen this before. Sure, Bessemer was up 11 at halftime, but here was dreaded Crystal Falls Forest Park - even with a sub-.500 9-11 record -with the lead in the fourth quarter, ready to upset the hottest Class D team in the Upper Peninsula outside of North Central. But the Speedboys made the plays down the stretch, finally dismantling the Crystal Falls' mystique with a 42-38 victory Wednesday night in the MHSAA District 127 semifinal. It's the first time since 2012 that...
HURLEY - Hurley scored at Washburn's pace for a half, but they couldn't maintain it for the entire game. And they couldn't stop Trevor Cook. Not that anyone else has been able to either. Cook led the Castle Guards (8-4, 7-3) with 52 points in Friday night's 77-63 Indianhead Conference victory over Hurley (4-9, 4-6). The 6-1 senior didn't get to the hoop all that often, but boy did he put on a shooting clinic, whether from 3 or mid-range, it didn't matter. "We didn't give up a ton of layups to...
BESSEMER - Bessemer stayed with the Upper Peninsula's top-ranked Class D girls team, Baraga, for three quarters, but the Vikings pulled away for a 42-24 Copper Mountain Conference victory Friday night. "We had the No. 1 team in the U.P. at our house and we played them solid for three quarters," Bessemer coach Gerry Pelissero said. "I told the girls after the game, 'OK, are you convinced you can play with anybody left on our schedule?' Certainly, we can." The Speedgirls (2-9, 2-6) returned home...
